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© Rhonda Urdang

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Rhonda Urdang

Flagstaff

Artist Statement

My work concerns itself with the intricacies of the collective unconscious. As a feminist artist living and working at 7,000 feet near the sacred San Francisco Peaks in Northern Arizona, icons are very much as part of my daily life. The revered sciences of antiquity were recorded in secular and religious symbols which sum up certain occult principles and therefore form layers of fabrications and enigmatic language. Most cryptograms condense a multitude of meanings into one entity and can be interpreted in a cosmic or human sense. Obscure dreams or nightmares of past, present, and beyond often have no key and can be arduous to unravel. Apparitions or disconcerting images act as truth of reality or are deceptions of paranormal communications that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. My art pierces the veil of remembrance with the creation of unpredictable remnants and is an exploration of feminine mythos intended to leave a seductive mark on obscured alignments. Recollections of cultural personifications and allegory are a vital channel of expression. The recurring arc can be equated with the egg -- a sacred pictogram in the cosmology of every people, representing the immense process by which biospheres and all living beings are born. G-d has been a womyn since the beginning of time -- a reminder that archeologists believed divinity was considered female for the first 200,000 years of human life n earth. The ovule contains positive and negative forces which together emit camouflaged existence with hidden meanings. The loveliness of the moon has inspired all of humankind since the beginning of time, especially the magical night sky which rhapsodizes our stellar sisterhood. I'm somewhat more myself in my sleep when my body is in a state of slumber when images and illusions are formed. 5/19/2020

© Rhonda Urdang

Rhonda Urdang's Portfolio

© Rhonda Urdang

Artist Biography

RHONDA URDANG is an independent studio artist working across multiple disciplines. She has been making and exhibiting her artwork since 1970. Since founding Flagstaff Feminist Art Studio, she has worked primarily in femmage, book art, collage, digital manipulation, painting and satire. Her thought-provoking pieces have been shown extensively in regional, national and international group shows in 39 states. Rhonda received her BFA in painting from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and worked as a journeyman color separation artist on high-fashion catalogs in the graphic arts industry. Her visionary work responds to historical and world events. Human, civil, and worker's rights have been important social issues for her since an early age. Rarely does she commit to one style -- choosing rather to let her keen intuitive perception and vivid imagination guide her from one theme to the next. She gains visual pleasure from unraveling the feminine mystique while peeling away layers of buried eidetic memory in her art practice. More recently, she's been exploring the aristocracy, multi-ethnic, Afropunk identities of Paris & London, and complex racial dynamics -- in an effort to bring about reparative justice and collective healing. She has lived in Northern Arizona for 3 decades. Her work is informed by the people, place, and color palette of her surroundings, and by her personal life experiences.

rhondaurdang.com

@Rhonda.Urdang

© Rhonda Urdang

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